Before I get too far into this, I know some of you will probably mention that this should have been the new poll question. To that I say, it would have been if my mind wasn’t working on a 486 CPU and did not freeze up. LOL I know lame joke. But seriously, to our long time and newer readers/users, what can I and the staff do to improve SimPrograms and make a friendlier place? Less EA news? Less complaining about every little thing? Is our recent advertising our social accounts a bad move? Forums? Let us know in the comments section below. Thanks and remember… Please be kind, rewind. 🙂
You are manipulating the poll results!
??? I honestly cannot comprehend this site anymore. Is this a who’s better site or a news site? ???
Just a little thing, haha
Not center the text? I know it sound odd but I like it at the left side 🙂
I have no complaints.
I see no issue with this or the poll. Once again, this site doesn’t really compete or wants to be #1 in the Sims fansite community. It is always about the fans and fansites. I highly encourage others to take a look at all of the fansites on the poll. There is nothing wrong with having a favorite. Mine was SnootySims. 🙂
Yeah a forum would be awesome.
So the question I would pose is: Forums are great, but at what degree do we need forums?
Complete and total integration into SimPrograms where you can post comments here and they would also apply as posts in actual discussions? or just space to talk?
-Less over the top headlines ie. KOTAKU LIED
– More really sims stuff, like report on the fact that at the moment EA sucks more balls than it knows what to do with.
-Less talking about free store sets
-No Sims Social
@Judhudson
I can integrated it multiple ways. But the question all depends on what users and Bafendo feels. Whether they want their own separate independent forum or whether they want to piggy back on an existing forum (like my own) to whatever. There’s thousands of combinations here and I’m not sure which way is best for the SimPrograms audience.
Main reason I didn’t stick with forums – I dont mind them, I am for them actually….But I tend to lose interest in checking them about 1-2 weeks in, thus I never kept up with them. Hence why now I rarely go on forums and all things are done mostly on facebook
Oh yea, and a question remains whether whether Bafendo wants to spend time managing a forum and getting rid of spam. It’s such a pain.
As far as I’m concerned, the site’s great just the way it stands now, opinions, Sim Social and all. I just want to read news about sims and I believe that is what this site provides. I voted for Snooty but he hasn’t been around much lately, but I still go there.
Forums 😀
Huh? How so? I wish we would have thought of this as the new poll yesterday instead of what it currently is. But seriously… Huh?
This is definitely my favorite site for checking Sims news. The layout is clean and simple. And I *LOVE* that there is a mobile version of SimsPrograms, that I check often on my phone.
Some of the EA bashing in the past has grated my nerves. I don’t mind a witty quip or whatnot every once in a while whilst presenting news, but I think some of the more stronger opinions are best put in the comments of the stories.
I appreciate that you cover all aspects of the Sims and other EA/Maxis sim games, even though I’m not into Social or FreePlay. I will be gettingthe new Simcity, and it’ll be nice to have that info and updates here as well. One stop shopping, so to speak!
Once again, I LOVE the mobile version of the site. Can’t say that enough.
I don’t think anything really needs to change, it’s pretty good as it is at the moment. It would be neat to get more sales figures though so rather then having just the UK stuff you could try to do US, AUS, etc.
Don’t know if it is related to this or not but for some reason I’m not getting to the mobile site on my phone, I keep being sent to the regular site.
It’s not asking which is better, but simply which sites you enjoy:)
Thank you for allowing us to view the regular site on mobile.,sooooo much better 🙂
I do have one question though, whats with the new poll? Obviously a poll on you site would win lol….right? :/
OMG me too now! What happened? Did I jinx everything by talking about it? NOOOOO!!!
Bring it back!
😛
Thank you sooooo much for allowing us to view the regular site on mobile.
Quick question. What exactly is the site poll going to provide? Its not like you would lose….right? :/
And based on what I’m reading here, you all needed a huddle before swapping ownership. Seems like left hand doesn’t know what right is doing.
I the wonderful world of gaming, the atmosphere can take on a rather strong political make-up and I believe that site management should stay neutral.
I also think that a forum wood be more objective and less subjective.
And I do like the currant front page format.
Always loved the site and always will. It’s fantastic!
SimPrograms still belongs to Jud. We’re still in a transitional phase where day to day operations are being handed over to Bafendo. Eventually, and possibly, Bafendo may own SimPrograms. There’s a lot of questions, but we’re all taking it slowly and one step at a time so things do not fall through the cracks.
Just a reminder that improvements would be for you guys and gals and NOT so we’d be more competitive with other sites. Personally I wouldn’t mind keeping the site like it is now. But it doesn’t hurt to see how those that use and love this site would like it if something else was added or what not. 🙂
I don’t think complete integration is possible at this point in time. That’s according to Jud. Something about how he would have set that up when he first redid the site using WordPress. I only mentioned it because a few people have on here before and on twitter. 🙂
Josh, if you could integrate forums into the site – that’d be awesome. I never could get it to work sadly. Wayyy to complicated for me to figure out with wordpress integration. Of course, that was 2-3 years ago. Dunno if things changed and were made easier.
The badmouthing was pretty much my fault, and one of the reasons why I had to step away. I just dont have anything good anymore to say about EA right now…The site would literally be full of hatred towards the company if I was still around. Most of my venting now is on my personal facebook profile
For those of you experiencing issues with the mobile style, it has been fixed.
Shameless plug too 😛 Everyone is also welcomed at my quiet forums too.
http://uoem.com/forums/
Why was everyone annoyed at the last poll?…
I think it was simply a case of “you can’t please everyone”
I would say no to the idea of Forums. For me, it tends to disperse the focus of discussions.
What I would like is an easier way to see the news. Sometimes I go into the site and there are ten or twenty new news, and I have to go far back to see what I missed. I do not know if is possible to give the page a smaller format, so you can see more titles at a glance. I pass you an example from another fandom: http://casualstrolltomordor.com/
I love it as it is now. It was getting very negative, but that is now corrected and I am very pleased. Personally, I just read the Sim news, but I don’t think you should stop mentioning the other games. I just skip over it if I’m not interested, but I realize that others are interested. I get a lot of valuable information here. Thank you all very much 🙂
– I think a chatbox or something like it would be enough. Just some space to communicate quickly and easily. A forum might be a bit over-the-top. There are enough Sims forum already.
– And indeed, do something about the mobile site. It works perfectly for people with Nokia 3410s, but it redirects even people with the latest smartphones (which are perfectly capable of viewing the full desktop site) to the limited mobile site, with no way to switch to the full version. Removing the mobile site wouldn’t be a good idea, but at least provide a switch button or something.
– Taking a neutral standpoint about the EA news would be a good start. The constant stream of sarcasm in these articles (deserved or not) get a bit annoying after a while and are not really funny anymore. I think the comments are more of a place to express personal opinions, even by the article author.
– I would love some in-depth (column-like) articles by someone who is good at it (not saying that you are not, just don’t let someone who (so to speak) doesn’t know the difference between they’re and their do it). Just a suggestion, nothing more.
However, Simprograms is (and, as far as I can see, will be) my go-to site about the Sims and SimCity. It’s usually the fastest website and always written in clear English
Like a ***sarcasm alert***? LOL
I love the sarcasm well mixed, not on the side. But anyway, what the majority want…
Ok what happen to the as site as again?? Ugh can you at least give us the option to view the desktop version? This mobile version sucks!
I think that if you start off with a simple forum with just main categories (Sims 3, Simcity, Sim social…) you could expand or delete as necessary.
Please include an editing feature.
I’m using an Android phone. I know Android 4.0 and higher have an option available to ‘request desktop site’, but my device runs on Android 2.3.7, so I don’t know whether it works for SimPrograms.
I don’t want the mobile site to simply go away. It is a very easy and lightweight way to check the news, but it is very limited in its features.
A lot of mobile devices (especially tablets) have the capacities and capabilities of full-size desktops.
I love this site, it provides info on almost everything sims related. I still love Sims 1 so it’s great to see videos or “news” posted about it from time to time. I also love the multiple sections and info provided for each and every game, really helpful.
I can’t really suggest anything to improve the site. The only thing that comes to mind right now is that a forum may seem cool at first, but I don’t know how much use it would have, so think about it before you go all out of your way to implement it!
I only say this because I love the fansite, and we already have the comments where we talk and discuss stuff. It’s my opinion though, so yeah ^^
I dont understand. I never voted in that poll about my favorite web site and there’s no place to select which site I like.
I like the neutral standpoint in news thing, you could add your own opinion at the bottom of the article, or even in the comments. But I wouldn’t like the staff’s opinions to disappear, so I agree on what Bas said: keep your opinions posted, just making it clear what’s the news part and what’s the opinion part, would be great ;3
We’re looking into a way to either include both versions for mobile or a way to switch between them.
Also, we might or might not add forums. Part of that depends on how difficult it will be to add them, that and the most active staff on here right now is me and Dan. ATM it might be a bit much to mod forums, remove spam on there and the comments section and do posts. But who knows what the future will bring.
I need to get some more feedback from users who want to switch between the regular site and the mobile site.
Are you guys smartphone users? If yes, what smartphone platform are you running (iOS, Windows, Android, etc.)
There’s nothing wrong outsourcing forums to another group to manage it.
So as long as you can integrate into the site well.
I have no intention of killing the mobile style, but I do need to figure out which group of users want to view the normal site over the mobile site.
The main thing that bothers me is the wibiya toolbar on the mobile style. I wish you guys could figure out how to axe it as its smack over the content and I can’t read half of the story. Opera mini btw.
I can probably disable the Wibiya toolbar – does anyone even use it? I use to, but now I completely forgotten about it.
What platform are you running?
I access the mobile site on my Nokia E63 which I don’t think is an android phone and I access it on the stock browser that comes with it. I really like the format of the mobile site, I find it really easy to navigate which in my opinion is good for a mobile site. Also I don’t get the wibiya tool bar on it which is a good thing and it could be like a smart phone thing which is why some people get it.
Just putting this out there as an idea for the site during a slow news weeks in between releases and announcements; you could do like public opinion letters/editorial type things.
I’d say remove it. I rarely use it, but the YouTube, Twitter and FB are handy. But again, I almost never notice it.
Could you add a “View full site” button on the mobile site? That is all I ask for.
I love the mobile site, but I cannot answer polls on it, so that’s why I want the button.
I dont understand. I never voted in that poll about my favorite web site and there’s no place to select which site I like.
Moreover, no person of my state able to vote in this poll … Zero credibility …
@Antonouza & @sarah – I looked into it further…and discovered that both of you are of the same IP address. If you happen to have an issue with the sites being listed in the poll, then that’s fine. But please don’t try to pass off the fact that you or other Brazil fans are unable to vote. I don’t really like digging thru plugin settings/codes thinking there is an issue when everything was normal to begin with…
I’d like to understand why I can’t have voting in poll. Other users are reporting the same problem. You blocked the option of voting for Brazil? Why?
Is there any sort of error messages for those that appear to be getting blocked by the poll? This should NOT be happening, and I don’t think it ever has occurred in the past. I looked thru the poll settings and there is nothing that has been changed or blocked. I do recall that the poll plugin recently has been updated – but I do not understand why it’s blocking users.
This problem was not intentionally set – the poll should be open to everyone. So whatever it may be, something is glitching internally with the poll plugin.
If the site you want to vote for is not listed in the poll, select “Other”. And name the site in the poll post.
I have an ipad and an adroid. Can you please give us a full site option?
Hi this isn’t about poll results but it is a suggestion for the site. I would like a non mobile version like we have here when I’m on my android.
On there I have to use the mobile version of simprograms that looks much different then when I’m on pc.
Ok, your new “switch” on the mobile site doesn’t work. If you tunr off mobile, it still takes you back to mobile and reverts back to ON. PLUS, the whole point is to be able to use the FULL site (polls and all) on the phone
if you have an iOS, Android, BlackBerry, or a Palm Pre, you should have a different theme now.
The switch feature works perfectly for me. Awesome, thanks!
The switch function is working great for me, but the new theme for the mobile version isn’t coming up consistently. I very much liked the new theme, a little more bells and whistles, but still clean and simple and user-friendly. I’m using Android on a phone, 2.3.something…
Keep up the awesome work.
I just noticed you disabled the toolbar. Cheers! Now I can actually read the mobile site.